Portable electronic apparatus, and a method of controlling a user interface thereof

ABSTRACT

A portable electronic apparatus has a display, keypad, sensor and controller. Keys of the keypad are distributed within a keypad area in at least a first plane and are arranged for user actuation transversally to the first plane to provide a first type of user input. The sensor is positioned to sense navigating user actuation at the keypad area in or coincident with the first plane to provide a second type of user input. The controller is configured to control a focus position on the display in response to the second type of user input; associate a plurality of display subareas of the display with respective keys of the keypad; and accept, for user input of the second type, user actuation of an actuated key among the keys as a selection of a selectable item presented at the focus position in a particular display subarea associated with the actuated key.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.12/809,373, which was the National Stage of International ApplicationNo. PCT/EP2008/068054, internationally filed on Dec. 19, 2008, whichclaims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/016,640, filedon Dec. 26, 2007 and EP07150332.0 filed on Dec. 21, 2007. Thedisclosures of each of these previous applications are incorporatedherein by reference in their entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to the field of portable electronicequipment, and in particular to a portable electronic apparatus having adisplay and a keypad adapted both for conventional key-pressing useractuation of individual keys and for navigating user actuation within akeypad area that includes the keys. The invention also relates to amethod of controlling a user interface of such a portable electronicapparatus.

BACKGROUND

Portable electronic equipment of course exists in many different types.One common example is a mobile terminal, such as a mobile telephone fora mobile telecommunications system like GSM, UMTS, D-AMPS, CDMA2000,FOMA or TD-SCDMA. Other examples include personal digital assistants(PDAs), portable media players (e.g. DVD players), palmtop computers,digital cameras, game consoles, navigators, etc. A mobile terminal inthe form of a mobile telephone will be used as a non-limiting example ofa portable electronic apparatus in the following.

Different kinds, or categories, of mobile terminals are currentlyoffered on the market. A first category can be referred to as the“normal cell phone” type, having a display and a physical (mechanical)keypad with twelve keys representing digits 0-9 as well as characters *and #. This kind of keypad is commonly known as an ITU-T or a PIN-typekeypad. In addition to the twelve keys, a mobile terminal of this firstcategory often also has additional input elements, such as soft keys forcall handling, etc., and input elements for display navigation, such asa set of arrow keys, a combined four or five-way navigation key, ajoystick or a scroll wheel.

A further development of the first category is sometimes referred to asthe “BlackBerry®” type. This type has a more extended set of keys, suchas a physical keyboard of full QWERTY type (with one key for eachtypical key of a typewriter keyboard) or compact QWERTY type (where, forinstance, each key may represent two adjacent keys of a typewriterkeyboard), as well as any of the input elements for display navigationreferred to above.

A different, second category of mobile terminals has a touch-sensitivedisplay which can be operated by way of a stylus or the finger of auser. This second category, which is often referred to as “smartphone”or “PDA (personal digital assistant)”, therefore does not need aphysical (mechanical) keypad (although some models of this categorystill contain a physical keypad in addition to the touch-sensitivedisplay).

Whereas mobile terminals of the second category certainly have theirbenefits, there are nevertheless some drawbacks associated with them, interms of a large apparatus size, high electric power consumption, and ahigh price. For many user segments, the first category of mobileterminals is therefore still preferred, wherein improvements to suchmobile terminals are still desired.

Because of market demands, mobile terminals of the first category areminimal in physical size. Whereas this is beneficial from otherperspectives, there is a problem to consider when it comes to theirdisplay navigation capabilities. Navigating by means of small arrow keysor a tiny joystick on a miniaturized terminal housing may bechallenging.

In EP-1 197 835, an improvement is suggested where a mobile terminal isprovided with a keypad which is adapted both for conventionalkey-pressing user actuation of individual keys and for navigating useractuation within a keypad area that includes the keys. To this end, thekeypad—which has a keymat with a conventional twelve-key, ITU-T keylayout—is provided with capacitive sensing plates integrally disposedbeneath the keymat. In this way, the keypad of EP-1 197 835 can be usedboth in a conventional manner to enter alphanumeric data by pressingindividual keys of the keypad, and as a touch pad by sliding a fingerover the surface of the keymat to control a focus position (e.g. theposition of a cursor) on the display. In effect, the touch-sensitivekeypad of EP-1 197 835 can be used in much the same way as a mouse padon a conventional laptop computer to navigate a cursor on the display.Also, selecting actions are performed as with a mouse pad on a laptopcomputer, i.e. by double-tapping on the mobile terminal'stouch-sensitive keypad.

A problem that can be identified with the solution according to EP-1 197835 is that due to the typical small size of a mobile terminal, it maybe difficult to position the cursor accurately at the desired focusposition. This has to do both with the fact that the keypad and displayare quite small compared to a laptop computer, and because the mobileterminal is typically held in a non-stationary (hand-held) position. Itmay thus be even harder to perform a selecting action accurately, sincenot only must the focus position be navigated to correctly, but it mustalso be maintained in its correct position between the two taps of thedouble-tapping.

Therefore, there is still a need for improvements to a portableelectronic apparatus, such as a mobile terminal, like the one in EP-1197 835, having a display and a keypad adapted both for conventionalkey-pressing user actuation of individual keys and for navigating useractuation as a touch-pad within a keypad area that includes the keys.

SUMMARY

It is accordingly an object of the invention to eliminate or alleviateat least some of the above problems referred to above.

As a conceptual idea behind the invention, the present inventor hasrealized that for a mobile terminal that has a keypad which functionsboth as a conventional keypad for key-pressing user actuation ofindividual keys and as a touchpad for navigating user actuation within akeypad area that includes the keys, the selectable items in the contentspresented on the display may be limited to certain subareas, moreparticularly to display subareas which are associated with respectivekeys of the keypad. Moreover, during display navigation, selectingactions may be done by depressing the particular key associated with thedisplay subarea that contains the particular selectable item of desire.

This conceptual idea has been reduced to practice at least according tothe aspects and embodiments of the invention referred to below.

One aspect of the present invention therefore is a portable electronicapparatus having:

a display;

a keypad having a plurality of keys, the keys being distributed within akeypad area in at least a first plane, and the keys being arranged forkey-pressing user actuation transversally to said first plane so as toprovide a first type of user input;

sensor means positioned to sense navigating user actuation at saidkeypad area in or coincident with said first plane so as to provide asecond type of user input; and

a controller configured to control a focus position on said display inresponse to user input of said second type,

wherein the controller is configured to associate a plurality of displaysubareas of said display with respective keys of said keypad and toaccept, for user input of said second type, a key-pressing useractuation of an actuated key among said keys as a selection of aselectable item presented at said focus position in a particular displaysubarea associated with said actuated key.

The second type of user input will thus typically relate to navigationin displayed contents which include a plurality of selectable items(such as icons, buttons, links or thumbnails), followed by a selectionof one of these selectable items. Such navigation may involve a usermoving a finger across the keypad area to control the two-dimensionalfocus position (e.g. cursor position) on the display. Thanks to theinvention, the user's selection of the desired selectable item will bemore accurate.

In some embodiments, in addition to navigation in displayed contents,the sensor means may be adapted to sense gestures performed by more thanone finger, such as “pinching” with the thumb and index finger on saidkeypad area to command an in-zooming operation on the displayedcontents, and “unpinching” with the thumb and index finger to command anout-zooming operation.

Advantageously, the sensor means is touch-sensitive, i.e. capable ofsensing the user's navigating user actuation whenever the user's fingercontacts the surface of the keypad area and is, thus, moved in saidfirst plane. In one or more embodiments, the keypad comprises a keymat,wherein said touch-sensitive sensor means comprises capacitive sensingmeans positioned beneath said keymat.

However, alternative embodiments are envisaged where physical contact isnot required; it may suffice that the user's finger is moved proximateto the surface of the keypad area, i.e. in a plane coincident with saidfirst plane. Such alternative embodiments may for instance be based onimpedance sensing technology (such as capacitive or resistive), oracoustic (such as surface acoustic wave (SAW) or acoustic pulserecognition), or optical (such as infrared or based on imageprocessing).

In one or more embodiments, the keys of said keypad are arranged suchthat at least a top part thereof is tactilely sensable when a user'sfinger is swept over said keypad area. The keys of said keypad may bearranged to be physically depressible in a direction transverse to saidfirst plane.

In one or more embodiments, said controller is configured, in a cursorcontrol mode intended for input of said second type, to

receive contents to be presented on said display;

determine one or more pieces of clickable content included in saidcontents; and

for at least one piece of clickable content, rearrange this piece ofclickable content with respect to the contents to be presented, suchthat the piece of clickable content will appear, when the contents arepresented on said display, as a selectable item in a particular displaysubarea associated with a particular key of said keypad.

Such embodiments will improve the user's convenience by adapting thepresentation of received contents (e.g. HTML data), so that selectableitems are presented in as many display subareas as possible andtherefore are made selectable by means of as many keys as possible.

For such embodiments, the rearranging may be performed as a result of afinding that said piece of clickable content would have appeared, whenpresented, at a display location which would not have fallen within anyof said display subareas or at a display location which would havefallen within a display subarea that contains another piece of clickablecontent, and that said particular display subarea is available in thesense that it would not have contained a piece of clickable content.

In one or more embodiments, where the display subareas havepredetermined display locations on said display, said controller isconfigured, in a cursor control mode intended for input of said secondtype, to

determine one or more selectable items included in contents presented onsaid display;

compare location(s) of the determined selectable item(s) on said displayto the predetermined display locations of said display subareas; and

when a location of one of the determined selectable item(s) matches apredetermined display location of an available one of the displaysubareas, present on said display a graphical indication of the match.

This will give a visual aid to the user by showing which parts of thedisplay that contain clickable matter selectable by the keys of thekeypad.

Advantageously, the graphical indication of the match is presented as aboundary of the matching display subarea.

The controller may be configured to indicate said focus position in theform of a graphical marker symbol on said display.

The keys of said keypad may, in one or more but not necessarily allembodiments, have a layout selected from the group consisting of ITU-T,full QWERTY and compact QWERTY.

The apparatus may be embodied as a mobile terminal, advantageously amobile telephone for a mobile telecommunications system like GSM, UMTS,D-AMPS, CDMA2000, FOMA or TD-SCDMA.

A second aspect of the invention is method of controlling a userinterface of a portable electronic apparatus having a display and akeypad with a plurality of keys distributed within a keypad area in atleast a first plane, by sensing a navigating user actuation at saidkeypad area in said first plane; and controlling a focus position onsaid display in response to the sensed navigating user actuation, themethod further involving

associating a plurality of display subareas of said display withrespective keys of said keypad;

detecting a key-pressing user actuation of an actuated key among saidkeys in a direction transverse to said first plane; and

accepting said key-pressing user actuation as a selection of aselectable item presented at said focus position in a particular displaysubarea associated with said actuated key.

The method according to the second aspect may generally have anyfunctional feature identical with or corresponding to any of thefeatures referred to above for the apparatus according to the firstaspect.

It should be emphasized that the term “comprises/comprising” when usedin this specification is taken to specify the presence of statedfeatures, integers, steps, or components, but does not preclude thepresence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps,components, or groups thereof.

Objects, features and advantages of embodiments of the invention willappear from the following detailed description and accompanyingdrawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a non-limiting example of anenvironment in which embodiments of the present invention may beexercised.

FIG. 2 is a schematic front view of a portable electronic apparatusaccording to a first embodiment of the present invention, having akeypad which functions both as a conventional keypad for key-pressinguser actuation of individual keys so as to provide a first type ofinput, and as a touchpad for navigating user actuation so as to providea second type of input.

FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram representing the major components,within the context of the present invention, of a portable electronicapparatus according to one embodiment.

FIG. 4 a illustrates the operation of the keypad and the display of theportable electronic apparatus in a key input mode where the first typeof input is provided.

FIGS. 4 b-c illustrate the operation of the keypad and the display ofthe portable electronic apparatus in a cursor navigation mode where thesecond type of input is provided.

FIG. 5 is a schematic, perspective and fractioned view of thecomposition of a keypad with touch-sensitive sensor means according toone embodiment of the portable electronic apparatus.

FIG. 6 a is a schematic illustration of how the functionality of oneembodiment may appear to a user of an Internet browser application whenrun on the portable electronic apparatus.

FIG. 6 b is a schematic illustration of how the functionality of anotherembodiment may appear to a user of an Internet browser application whenrun on the portable electronic apparatus.

FIG. 7 is a schematic flowchart of a method according to one embodimentof the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the invention will be now described with reference to theaccompanying drawings. The invention may, however, be embodied in manydifferent forms and should not be construed as limited to theembodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided sothat this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fullyconvey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. Theterminology used in the detailed description of the particularembodiments illustrated in the accompanying drawings is not intended tobe limiting of the invention. In the drawings, like numbers refer tolike elements.

Before turning to a detailed description of the disclosed embodiments,an exemplifying environment in which they may be exercised will now bebriefly described with reference to FIG. 1.

In FIG. 1, a portable electronic apparatus in the form of a mobileterminal 100 is part of a cellular telecommunications system. A user 1of the mobile terminal 100 may use different telecommunicationsservices, such as voice calls, Internet browsing, video calls, datacalls, facsimile transmissions, still image transmissions, videotransmissions, electronic messaging, and e-commerce. These describedtelecommunication services are however not central within the context ofthe present invention; there are no limitations to any particular set ofservices in this respect.

The mobile terminal 100 connects to a mobile telecommunications network110 over a radio link 111 and a base station 112. The mobile terminal100 and the mobile telecommunications network 110 may comply with anycommercially available mobile telecommunications standard, including butnot limited to GSM, UMTS, D-AMPS, CDMA2000, FOMA and TD-SCDMA. Asalready mentioned, embodiments of the mobile terminal 100 will bedescribed in more detail later with reference to the remaining drawings.

A conventional public switched telephone network (PSTN) 130 is connectedto the mobile telecommunications network 110. Various telephoneterminals, including a stationary telephone 131, may connect to the PSTN130.

The mobile telecommunications network 110 is also operatively associatedwith a wide area data network 120, such as the Internet. Servercomputers 121 and client computers 122 may be connected to the wide areadata network 120 and therefore allow communication with the mobileterminal 100.

An embodiment 200 of the mobile terminal 100 is illustrated in moredetail in FIG. 2. The mobile terminal 200 has a housing that includes afront side 201 _(F). The front side 201 _(F) has a user interface or MMIthat involves a speaker or earphone 202, a microphone 205, a display203, and an ITU-T-type keypad 204 having twelve alpha-numeric keysdistributed within a keypad area 204 b, the keys representing the digits0-9 and the characters * and #. Certain other special keys such as softkeys 205 a, 205 b may also be provided. Furthermore, a camera 206 may bemounted on the front side 201 _(F). Other well-known external componentsmay also be provided, such as power switch, battery, charger interface,accessory interface, volume controls and external antenna, but are notindicated in FIG. 2 for the sake of brevity.

The internal component structure of a portable electronic apparatusaccording to one embodiment will now be described with reference to FIG.3. The embodiment of FIG. 3 may, but does not have to, be the mobileterminal 200 of FIG. 2. The portable electronic apparatus 300 of FIG. 3has a controller 301, which is configured to receive input from a keypad340 (for instance the keypad 204 of the mobile terminal 200) and controla display 320 (for instance the display 203 of the mobile terminal 200)accordingly. Thus, the controller 301 is configured to control a userinterface (MMI) of the apparatus, the user interface including thekeypad 204 and the display 203. Particulars of how the controller 301may interact with the keypad 340 and display 320 when implementing theinventive idea will appear clearly from the description below.

The controller 301 may be implemented by any commercially available andsuitably programmed CPU (“Central Processing Unit”) or DSP (“DigitalSignal Processor”), or alternatively by any other electronic logicdevice such as an FPGA (“Field-Programmable Gate Array”), an ASIC(“Application-Specific Integrated Circuit”) or basically any combinationof digital and/or analog components which, in the mind of a skilledperson, would be a natural choice in order to implement the disclosedfunctionality. In some embodiments it may be combined with, i.e.realized by, a main controller that is responsible for the overalloperation of the apparatus.

The controller 301 also includes, is coupled to or otherwise associatedwith a memory 330. The memory 330 may be realized by any available kindof memory device, such as a RAM memory, a ROM memory, an EEPROM memory,a flash memory, a hard disk, or any combination thereof. The memory 302may be used for various purposes by the controller 301 as well as byother controllers in the portable electronic apparatus (such as theaforementioned main controller, if applicable), including but notlimited to storing data and program instructions for various software inthe portable electronic apparatus.

Particularly for embodiments where the portable electronic apparatus 300is a mobile terminal, like the mobile terminal 200 referred to above,the software stored in memory 330 may include a real-time operatingsystem, drivers for the user interface, an application handler as wellas various applications. The applications may include applications forvoice calls, video calls and messaging (e.g. SMS, MMS, fax or email), aphone book or contacts application, a WAP/WWW browser, a media player, acalendar application, a control panel application, a camera application,video games, a notepad application, etc.

Furthermore, still with reference to embodiments where the portableelectronic apparatus 300 is a mobile terminal, the apparatus typicallyhas a radio interface 310. The radio interface 310 will comprise aninternal or external antenna as well as appropriate electronic radiocircuitry for establishing and maintaining a wireless link to a basestation (for instance the radio link 111 and base station 112 in FIG.1). As is well known to a man skilled in the art, such electronic radiocircuitry may comprise analog and digital components that constitute aradio receiver and transmitter. These components may include band passfilters, amplifiers, mixers, local oscillators, low pass filters, AD/DAconverters, etc. The radio interface typically also includes associatedcommunication service software in the form of modules, protocol stacksand drivers. Typically but optionally, the apparatus will also includeone or more interfaces 312 for short-range supplemental datacommunication, such as a Bluetooth interface, an IrDA (infrared)interface or a wireless LAN (WLAN) interface.

Reference is now also made to FIGS. 4 a-c. The keypad 340 has dualfunctions, or, alternatively put, is operable is two different inputmodes. Thus, one function of the keypad 340 is as a conventional keypadfor key-pressing user actuation of individual keys 342 to provide afirst type of input in a key input mode (FIG. 4 a), whereas a secondfunction of the keypad 340 is to act like a touchpad for navigating useractuation within a keypad area 341 to provide a second type of input ina cursor control mode (FIGS. 4 b-c).

Thus, the first type of input may relate to the dialing of a telephonenumber, or the entering of a number in a calculator application, or thewriting of characters for an SMS message, etc., performed by the user 1in a manner well known per se by pressing different keys 342 insequence. The keypad has key-press interface circuitry 347 for detectingdepressing of individual keys 342 in a direction transversally to theplane of the keypad area 341 and for forwarding the detected input tothe controller 301. FIG. 4 a illustrates an example where the user 1sequentially presses the keys 342 ₁, 342 ₆ and 342 ₈ to enter thepartial telephone number “168”, as seen at 326 on the display 320.

The second type of input involves navigating and selecting amongselectable items 322 shown on the display 320. The selectable items may,for instance, pertain to icons 322 a-b, links 322 c, buttons 322 d,thumbnails, etc. To this end, the keypad 340 is provided with sensormeans including touch-sensitive interface circuitry 348 capable ofdetecting navigational movements 344 performed e.g. by the user 1sliding a finger over the top of the keys 342 within the keypad area341. The navigational movements 344 may occur in any given direction inthe plane of the keypad area 341 (not just the four orthogonaldirections seen at 344 in FIG. 4 b). One embodiment of thetouch-sensitive keypad 340 will be explained in more detail later withreference to FIG. 5.

In the cursor control mode, the navigational movements 344 on the keypad340 are detected by the touch-sensitive interface circuitry 348 andforwarded to the controller 301, which will control or move 324 a focusposition 323 on the display 320 accordingly, as seen in FIG. 4 b. InFIG. 4 b, the focus position 323 is graphically indicated as anarrow-shaped cursor symbol.

In accordance with the inventive idea, the selectable items 322 a-damong the contents presented on the display 320 are limited to certaindisplay subareas 321 a-d. More particularly, the display subareas 321a-d are associated with respective keys 342 a-d of the keypad 340, suchthat one subarea 321 a is associated with one key 342 a, etc.

Advantageously, the disposition of the display subareas 321 of thedisplay 320 conforms to the disposition of the keys 342 on the keypad340; in other words, because of the 4×3 matrix arrangement of the keys342, the display subareas 321 will also have a 4×3 matrix arrangement onthe display 320. The shape, relative location and size of the subareas321 may vary between different embodiments; for instance, FIGS. 3 and 4a-c show rectangular display subareas 321, whereas FIG. 6 shows circularsubareas 321.

Since selectable contents are confined to the display subareas 321, theuser 1 conveniently performs a selecting action in the cursor controlmode by pressing the appropriate key—namely the particular key withwhich the particular display area is associated that contains theselectable item of desire. Advantageously, the top parts of the keys 342of the keypad 340 are arranged such that they protrude slightly from theplane of the keypad area 341 and therefore are tactilely sensable, whenthe user's finger is swept over the keypad 340. This has the advantageof giving a tactile orientation aid to the user 1; by feeling theprotruding keys, he will know whether or not he is at a position where aselectable item can be selected by pressing the key in question.

FIG. 4 c shows an example where the user 1 has navigated the focusposition 323 such that the cursor falls within the display subarea 321d, in which a selectable button 322 d is shown. Being located at thelowermost and leftmost matrix position on the display 320, the displaysubarea 321 d is associated with the corresponding key 342 d at thelowermost and leftmost key position among the keys 342 in the keypadarea 341. Therefore, by pressing the key 342 d in a direction 346transversally to the plane of the keypad area 341, the selection of thebutton 322 d is detected and registered by the touch-sensitive interfacecircuitry 348 and the controller 301, and the latter will report thisevent to the active software application or operating system.

With reference to FIG. 5, the composition of the keypad 340 according toone embodiment will now be described. FIG. 5 shows, in schematicperspective view, a cut-away portion 400 of the keypad 340 (see FIG. 3).In this embodiment, the keypad 340 has a keymat 410, made for instanceof a silicone rubber and comprising a plurality of key caps 412. Eachkey cap 412 thus forms a respective one of the afore-mentioned keys 342.Visual indications may be provided in the top surfaces of the key caps412 to represent, for instance, the typical characters 0-9, * and # ofan ITU-T-type keypad, and a protective coating 402 is provided on top ofthe key caps. To make the key caps tactilely sensable for the user 1,the protective coating 402 is preferably made of a thin, flexiblematerial.

In the embodiment of FIG. 5, first and second sensor plates 430 and 450are provided beneath the keymat 410 and form a capacitive sensor meanswhich, together with the touch-sensitive interface circuitry 348, makesit possible to sense navigating user interaction at the keypad area 341to provide the afore-mentioned second type of user input. To this end,the first sensor plate 430 has a first plurality of electrodes 432 whichare spaced apart and run in parallel to each other in a first direction.The second sensor plate 450 has a second plurality of spaced-apartelectrodes 452 which run in parallel to each other in a seconddirection, orthogonal to the first direction. The electrodes 432, 452are made of a suitable conductive material, such as metal or conductivepolymer, provided on a suitable substrate. When the user 1 touches thekeypad 340 (without exerting enough force to depress the key caps 412),a mutual capacitance will occur at an intersection between one of thefirst electrodes 432 and one of the second electrodes 452, by means ofwhich the current position of the user's finger on the keypad 342 can bedetermined.

To make it possible to detect when the key caps 412 are depressed, adome foil layer 490 is provided at the bottom of the keypad structure ontop of a suitable substrate 496 and protected by a gasket layer 480. Thedome foil layer 490 has a plurality of collapsible domes 492, eachcorresponding to a respective one of the key caps 412. When a key cap isdepressed, it will actuate the respective dome and cause it to collapse.The underside of the collapsed dome will actuate a switch 494 on theunderlying substrate 496. Together with the key-press interfacecircuitry 347, it will therefore be possible to detected key presses toprovide the afore-mentioned first type of user input (as described forinstance for the key input mode with reference to FIG. 4 a), and also todetect a selection of an item presented on the display 320 by way of akey press (as described for instance for the cursor control mode withreference to FIGS. 4 b-c).

Intermediate adhesive and support layers 420, 440 and 460 may beprovided between the layers described above. To provide illumination ofthe keymat 410, an electroluminescent layer 470 may be provided on topof the dome foil layer 490 and gasket layer 480.

It is to be noticed that the layers are only shown schematically in FIG.5 and all with the same thickness; in a real implementation, however,the layers will typically not be of the same width.

The composition of the keypad with its touch-sensitive interfacecircuitry described above is not the only possible design. On thecontrary, alternative embodiments may be based on other touch-sensitivetechnologies, such as any of the multi-touch technologies that arealready known per se in the field of portable electronic equipment,being capable of sensing the touch of more than one finger at the sametime. Thus, the keypad may have a multi-touch sensor overlay on top ofthe keys in some embodiments. As is realized by a skilled person, suchmulti-touch technology may for instance involve capacitive detection, oroptical detection with image recognition. With alternative embodimentslike these, the user may advantageously be allowed to perform gestureson the keypad area, such as “pinching” with the thumb and index fingeron the keypad area to command an in-zooming operation on the contentsdisplayed, and “unpinching” with the thumb and index finger to commandan out-zooming operation.

FIG. 6 a illustrates an example of how the functionality according tothe inventive idea may appear when an Internet browser application isrun on the portable electronic apparatus 300. In this example, theInternet browser application displays a window having a head part 327 aand a main part 327 b on the display 320. In the FIG. 6 a example, thecontroller 301 is configured to facilitate for the user 1 by visuallyindicating the presence of each selectable item 322 a-322 e and itsavailability for selection by means of the associated key 342 a-e. Thisis indicated by graphically presenting the boundary of each displaysubarea 321 a-e that contains a selectable item 322 a-322 e (theboundary having the appearance of a dashed circle in FIG. 6 a). To thisend, the controller 301 may be configured, in the cursor control mode,to analyze received HTML contents that is to be rendered by the Internetbrowser and determine the parts that represent clickable contents (e.g.http or ftp links, or objects associated with such links). Once thesehave been determined, the display controller will compare the locationsof the thus determined clickable contents on the display to see if theyfall within any of the predetermined locations of the display subareas321. If a clickable content at least partly falls within a displaysubarea, it will be registered as a selectable item 322 a-322 e, andthis status will be indicated by graphically presenting the boundary ofthe display subarea 321 a-321 e in question.

Thus, the user 1 is given visual aid by showing which parts 321 a-e ofthe display 320 that contain clickable contents which is selectable 322a-e by the keys 342 a-e of the keypad 340. When the display contents ischanged (for instance if the user browses to a new web page, ornavigates to another part of an image being too big to be shown all atonce on the display), the controller 301 will again perform theactivities above to determine which display subareas 321 that containselectable items and therefore should be graphically indicated to theuser 1.

In an alternative embodiment, the controller 301 is configured tooptimize the user's convenience by adapting the presentation of receivedcontents (e.g. HTML data), so that selectable items are presented in asmany display subareas 321 as possible and therefore are made selectableby means of as many keys 342 as possible.

In order to achieve this, the controller 301 will determine, as above,one or more pieces of clickable content included in the receivedcontents. If it is found that such a determined piece of clickablecontent would appear, when the received contents would be rendered andpresented, at a display location which would not fall within any of thepredetermined display subareas 321 or at a display location which wouldfall within a display subarea 321 that contains another piece ofclickable content, and if there is at least one available displaysubarea that would not contain a piece of clickable content, then thecontroller 301 may rearrange the determined piece of clickable contentto have a location which will indeed, when presented on the display 320,appear within such an available display subarea. The thus rearrangedpiece of clickable content will therefore appear as a selectable item322 a-e in one of the available display subareas 321 a-e and may beselected by actuation of an associated key 342 a-e.

An alternative to actually rearranging the determined piece of clickablecontent to appear within an available display subarea is as follows.When the controller 301 finds that a certain piece of clickable contentwill appear, upon rendering and presentation, at a display locationwhich does not fall within any of the predetermined display subareas321, the controller will let this happen but also if possible allocatean available display subarea within which no piece of clickable contentis presented, and reassign the particular key 342 normally associatedwith this available display subarea to instead and momentarily beassociated with aforesaid certain piece of clickable content. In otherwords, the certain piece of clickable content can be selected byactuating a key 342 which normally is not associated to the location onthe display 320 where the certain piece of clickable content is shown.An exemplifying situation is shown in FIG. 6 b.

In FIG. 6 b, four pieces of clickable contents are presented on thedisplay 320, in the form of four links 322 a-d (“link1”-“link4”). Thefirst link 322 a, “link1”, is shown in the first display subarea 321 aand is therefore selectable by means of the first (uppermost andleftmost) key 342 a. However, the links are shown as a list with only aminor distance between the list items, which will mean that also thesecond link 322 b, “link2”, will be shown in the first display subarea321 a. Since this first subarea 321 a is already occupied by the firstlink 322 a and associated with the first key 342 a, the second link 322b will instead be reassigned to the second key 342, because this key isnormally associated with a display area 321 b that currently does notcontain any clickable contents and therefore is available forreassignment. Therefore, the second link 322 b can be selected bypressing the second key 342 b, despite the fact that it is not presentedin the display subarea normally associated with that key. To make iteasier for the user 1 to understand this, a visual indication 329 b canbe given, for instance in the form of a dashed arrow that points fromthe second link 322 b to the display area 321 b.

Since also the third and fourth links 322 c-d, link3-link4, are shown inone and the same display subarea 321 d, one of them will have to bereassigned to another key than the one associated with the displaysubarea 321 d, i.e. key 342 d. This situation may be resolved in thecorresponding manner as above, i.e. by reassigning the third link 322 c,link3, to a third key 342 c which is available but is not the one thatwould normally have been used for selection of the third link. A visualindication 329 c of this reassignment is given to the user 1. The fourthlink 322 d, link4, will keep its normal assignment with the key 342 d.

A method according to one embodiment of the present invention is shownin FIG. 7.

In the embodiments disclosed above, the portable electronic apparatus ofthe invention has been described as a mobile terminal, in particular amobile telephone. Generally, however, the portable electronic apparatusof the invention may be embodied as or included in various portableelectronic equipment, including but not limited to a personal digitalassistant (PDA), a portable media player (e.g. a DVD player), a palmtopcomputer, a digital camera, a game console, or a navigator. Thus, eventhough the disclosed embodiments have a keypad with a key layout thatconforms to ITU-T, other embodiments with other keypads and key layoutsare equally possible, including but not limited to full QWERTY type orcompact QWERTY type.

In addition to the input arrangement according to the invention, theremay be circumstances in real implementations of the portable electronicapparatus where also other ways of performing selecting actions may beprovided. Thus, a portable electronic apparatus according to theinvention does not necessarily have to provide selecting actions only inthe manner described, it may also allow other kinds of complementaryselection actions, such as double-tapping, pressing a dedicated “select”button, giving a selecting voice control command, etc.

The invention has, consequently, been described above with reference tosome embodiments thereof. However, as is readily understood by a skilledperson, other embodiments are also possible within the scope of thepresent invention, as defined by the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A portable electronic apparatus having: adisplay; a keypad having a plurality of keys, the keys being distributedwithin a keypad area in at least a first plane, and the keys beingarranged for key-pressing user actuation transversally to the firstplane so as to provide a first type of user input; a sensor positionedto sense navigating user actuation at the keypad area in or coincidentwith the first plane so as to provide a second type of user input; and acontroller configured to: control a focus position on the display inresponse to user input of the second type; associate a plurality ofdisplay subareas of the display with respective keys of the keypad; andaccept, for user input of the second type, a key-pressing user actuationof an actuated key among the keys as a selection of a selectable itempresented at the focus position in a particular display subareaassociated with the actuated key, wherein the controller is configured,in a cursor control mode intended for input of the second type, to:receive content to be presented on the display; determine one or morepieces of clickable content included in the received content; and for atleast one piece of clickable content, rearrange this piece of clickablecontent with respect to the received content to be presented, such thatthe piece of clickable content will appear, when the received content ispresented on the display, as a selectable item in a particular displaysubarea associated with a particular key of the keypad, and wherein thecontroller is configured to perform the rearranging as a result of afinding that the piece of clickable content would have appeared, whenpresented, at a display location which would not have fallen within anyof the display subareas or at a display location which would have fallenwithin a display subarea that contains another piece of clickablecontent, and that the particular display subarea is available in thesense that it would not have contained a piece of clickable content. 2.The portable electronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein the sensor istouch-sensitive.
 3. The portable electronic apparatus of claim 2:wherein the keypad comprises a keymat; wherein the touch-sensitivesensor comprises a capacitive sensor positioned beneath the keymat. 4.The portable electronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein the keys of thekeypad are arranged such that at least a top part thereof is tactilelysensable when a user's finger is swept over the keypad area.
 5. Theportable electronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein the keys of the keypadare arranged to be physically depressible in a direction transverse tothe first plane.
 6. The portable electronic apparatus of claim 1,wherein the controller is configured to indicate the focus position inthe form of a graphical marker symbol on the display.
 7. The portableelectronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein the keys of the keypad have alayout selected from the group consisting of ITU-T, full QWERTY, andcompact QWERTY.
 8. The portable electronic apparatus of claim 1, whereinthe portable electronic apparatus is embodied as a mobile terminal. 9.The portable electronic apparatus of claim 8, wherein the mobileterminal is a mobile telephone for a mobile telecommunications system.10. A portable electronic apparatus having: a display; a keypad having aplurality of keys, the keys being distributed within a keypad area in atleast a first plane, and the keys being arranged for key-pressing useractuation transversally to the first plane so as to provide a first typeof user input; a sensor positioned to sense navigating user actuation atthe keypad area in or coincident with the first plane so as to provide asecond type of user input; and a controller configured to: control afocus position on the display in response to user input of the secondtype; associate a plurality of display subareas of the display withrespective keys of the keypad; and accept, for user input of the secondtype, a key-pressing user actuation of an actuated key among the keys asa selection of a selectable item presented at the focus position in aparticular display subarea associated with the actuated key, wherein thedisplay subareas have predetermined display locations on the display;wherein the controller is configured, in a cursor control mode intendedfor input of the second type, to: determine one or more selectable itemsincluded in received content presented on the display; comparelocation(s) of the determined selectable item(s) on the display to thepredetermined display locations of the display subareas; and when alocation of one of the determined selectable item(s) matches apredetermined display location of an available one of the displaysubareas, present on the display a graphical indication of the match,wherein the graphical indication of the match is presented as a boundaryof the matching display subarea.
 11. A method of controlling a userinterface of a portable electronic apparatus having a display and akeypad with a plurality of keys distributed within a keypad area in atleast a first plane, comprising: sensing a navigating user actuation atthe keypad area in the first plane; controlling a focus position on thedisplay in response to the sensed navigating user actuation; associatinga plurality of display subareas of the display with respective keys ofthe keypad; detecting a key-pressing user actuation of an actuated keyamong the keys in a direction transverse to the first plane; acceptingthe key-pressing user actuation as a selection of a selectable itempresented at the focus position in a particular display subareaassociated with the actuated key; receive content to be presented on thedisplay; determining one or more pieces of clickable content included inthe received content; and for at least one piece of clickable content,rearranging this piece of clickable content with respect to the receivedcontent to be presented, such that the piece of clickable content willappear, when the received content is presented on the display, as aselectable item in a particular display subarea associated with aparticular key of the keypad, wherein the rearranging is performed as aresult of a finding that the piece of clickable content would haveappeared, when presented, at a display location which would not havefallen within any of the display subareas or at a display location whichwould have fallen within a display subarea that contains another pieceof clickable content, and that the particular display subarea isavailable in the sense that it would not have contained a piece ofclickable content.
 12. The method of claim 11, further comprisingindicating the focus position in the form of a graphical marker symbolon the display.
 13. A method of controlling a user interface of aportable electronic apparatus having a display and a keypad with aplurality of keys distributed within a keypad area in at least a firstplane, comprising: sensing a navigating user actuation at the keypadarea in the first plane; controlling a focus position on the display inresponse to the sensed navigating user actuation; associating aplurality of display subareas of the display with respective keys of thekeypad; detecting a key-pressing user actuation of an actuated key amongthe keys in a direction transverse to the first plane; accepting thekey-pressing user actuation as a selection of a selectable itempresented at the focus position in a particular display subareaassociated with the actuated key wherein the display subareas havepredetermined display locations on the display, wherein the methodfurther comprises; determining one or more selectable items included inreceived content presented on the display; comparing location(s) of thedetermined selectable item(s) on the display to the predetermineddisplay locations of the display subareas; and when a location of one ofthe determined selectable item(s) matches a predetermined displaylocation of an available one of the display subareas, presenting on thedisplay a graphical indication of the match, wherein the graphicalindication of the match is presented as a boundary of the matchingdisplay subarea.